Event planning is a specialized career for a reason. Not just anyone can plan a seamless and engaging wedding, conference, banquet, or otherwise. It takes skilled professionals with the right training, passion, and confidence to succeed in this exciting and fast-paced industry.

If you’re interested in pursuing a career in event management, instructors at a top event planning school will help you on your way. It will also help to have a working knowledge of industry trends, and an understanding of common event management mistakes to avoid.

To start you off on the right foot, here’s our round-up of professional blunders you’ll learn to avoid in event management school.

1. Grads of Event Management Courses Never Leave Entrances Unmarked

A clearly marked entrance will set the tone for each event you plan throughout your career. By leaving an entrance unmarked, many event planners miss out on starting their events on a high-note, and instead begin with disgruntled guests who had difficulty finding their way into the location.

A great event planner creates entrances involving custom signage, bright lights, floral arches, or otherwise, all designed to coordinate with the general décor and set the scene for a memorable event. Mark pathways leading from the event parking to the venue, and you’ve gone above and beyond to ensure your guests arrive smoothly every time.

You may find yourself drawn to the wedding planner career path when you take event management courses. For bridal clients especially, it can be tempting to spread the news of their big day as soon as possible. But wedding planners and event planners in general must never make the mistake of sending out save-the-date cards before finalizing an event’s guest list.

Wedding planners guide clients toward the best options and timelines for sending out invites.

This can lead to embarrassing omissions or worse—the need to re-send invites featuring up-to-date information. Your planning and input can help clients avoid this costly mistake.

3. Event Manager School Grads Understand the Importance of ‘Walkthroughs’

When choosing venues and setting the details for a particular event, it’s crucial for you and your clients see the venue in person before the event date. Photos and websites can only give you and your clients so much information about how a space will truly function during an event.

“The better strategy is to walkthrough the itinerary with your client onsite whenever possible,” says event manager Justin K. “Discuss each moment and detail as if the event were happening in front of you.”

Without performing walkthroughs, the reality of an event may not be what a client has expected, and logistical elements of the event may not fall into place as planned. As you’ll learn in event manager school, it’s always best to be prepared! This means walkthroughs are essential.

4. Event Management Pros Remember to Finalize Floor Plans

It takes skill to turn a client’s dream and your own creativity into a concrete, logistically viable event. The right event management courses will teach you how to break down event planning into simple yet important steps, like finalizing an event’s floor plan.

An event management professional sketches out a floor plan for an upcoming event.

A detailed layout of chairs, tables, food, stage, and more will save valuable time when it comes to setting up the venue. Be sure to finalize your plan at least a week prior to an event date, leaving you time to share it with vendors, musicians, and others whose preparation will benefit from the information.

With these reminders in mind and training that places you on the industry’s cutting edge, nothing will stop you from making a career out of planning picture-perfect events.

When a couple gets married, they typically want everything to be perfect, including the soundtrack. For them it isn’t just another gig, it’s one of the most important days of their lives, and they will want to create exactly the right mood for the occasion.

With that in mind, it’s no surprise clients tend to favour more experienced DJs, and breaking into the wedding market can be difficult. However, once you get your foot in the door, it can be a lucrative and regular source of work. Established wedding DJs can make as much as $2,000 for a night’s work and will often have a few gigs a week during peak season.

Here are a few tips that will help you impress potential clients and land gigs in this high-value sector once you finish DJ school.

DJ School Grads Should Have a Diverse Musical Knowledge

The most important attribute a good wedding DJ can have is a diverse knowledge of music. Every couple will have their own unique tastes, and if you can cater to many different music styles, you’ll be able to attract a much wider client base.

Couples will also want you to help select the right music for special moments during their day, such as the first dance or the garter toss, and offering some interesting suggestions is a surefire way to impress them. DJ school graduates should also learn the difference between traditional dance beats, such as the foxtrot or waltz, in case their clients request them.

Wedding DJs Must Be Personable

Wedding DJs will often act as an MC for the evening, coordinating toasts, announcing different events, and encouraging the crowd to get up and dance. So it’s important to have a likable, outgoing personality, and be comfortable speaking in public. While this doesn’t come naturally to everyone, it is something you can get better at with experience.

Wedding DJs need to be comfortable on the microphone.

Pros With DJ Training Always Have the Right Equipment For the Job

When you finally land your first gig, the worst thing that can happen is for something to go wrong with your equipment during the night. The best wedding DJs leave nothing to chance. Many will back up their music on a second external drive or even bring along a backup laptop, just in case. It’s also important to have quality equipment. Sound problems can ruin even the best set, so be sure to invest in a professional mixing board, amplification and speakers.

Market Yourself Well To Land Wedding Gigs After DJ School

The key to getting wedding gigs once you complete your DJ training will be self-promotion. Many wedding DJs get much of their business from referrals or couples who attend other weddings they play, so be sure to bring plenty of business cards when you do perform, and always be on the lookout for potential new business. You could also try and secure slots at wedding fairs, or even rent a small venue and run your own showcase gig.

Posted on February 15th, 2016 - Written by: L'Institut Trebas

Trebas is excited to announce the return of our Career Services Workshops, which are available to all members of the college community. Trebas’s workforce integration coach Josée Daigneault provides a lot of useful advice and tools to help participants secure work in their chosen field. Students also get a valuable opportunity to get to know Josée better, so that she can keep their names in mind to refer for possible job opportunities in the future.

Here’s some of what you can expect from the upcoming workshops.

Learn How To Access The “Hidden Job Market”

Whether you’re pursuing film production or audio recording training, you’ll find that many job openings are filled by referral or word-of-mouth rather than advertized postings. In her workshops, Josée helps participants to develop networking skills and learn how to tap into this ‘hidden’ job market.

“As a freelancer, it’s important that I act fast in order to get contracts. I’ve been to several of Josée’s workshops, and what I’ve learned has served me well every time I apply for more work. Applying the steps that Josée teaches to my job search, CV, and in job interviews has allowed me to keep winning contracts related to my field of study.” (Daniel-Jacques)

Practical Advice For Every Stage Of The Job Search Process

Each workshop takes an in-depth look at different stages of the job search process, including resumes, portfolio building, and reference letters. Through two specialized workshops, participants can also learn how to connect with employers on LinkedIn, a great resource in today’s job market.

In addition, participants receive comprehensive interview skills training, including a two-hour interview simulation. Students enrolled in film school or pursuing audio design training will also find the freelance and contract workshops extremely valuable.

I found Josée’s workshops beneficial throughout my entire time at Trebas. The tools that she gives students for attacking the job market are truly remarkable. I still have the documents from the workshops I participated in to this day.” (Robert)

Workshops By Request

Can’t make it on these dates? Josée also offers workshops on demand. Simply organize a group of at least three students, and she will be happy to schedule one at your convenience.

Posted on February 12th, 2016 - Written by: L'Institut Trebas

The golden rule of television used to be that by the end of an episode, everything would go back to the way it began—conflicts would be resolved, mysteries would be solved, and the character s would be ready to begin a new adventure in the following episode. This is because TV networks wanted casual viewers to be able to drop in and start watching at any time, so complex narrative structures were eschewed in favor of simplicity and familiarity.

However, rules are made to be broken, and the past few decades have seen television embrace serialized storytelling, which has not only been welcomed by audiences, but helped elevate the medium to new heights. Freed from restrictive episodic formats, writers have been able to create compelling, cinematic programs that are as highly regarded as Oscar-winning films.

Are serialized shows the way of the future for TV? Read on to find out how television storytelling has grown over the years, and what the future holds for television production college graduates.

The Evolution Of TV Storytelling Explained For Television Schools Students

In television’s early days, episodic format became the dominant storytelling method largely out of necessity. Networks wanted to appeal to the broadest audience possible, and simple, self-contained storylines were easier to follow. Episodic shows could also be shown out of order, which was preferable for syndication.

Gradually, though, writers began to experiment with serialized storytelling. Film and TV school students might be surprised to learn that it was the success of soap opera-style shows like Dallas that helped network executives realize serialization could create “can’t miss TV,’ as viewers anxiously awaited the latest installment.

Nineties dramas like The West Wing added a cinematic credibility to the format, attracting coveted viewers that normally looked down on television, while even sitcoms like Friends and Seinfeld found success incorporating longer story arcs.

Early TV writers followed a strict episodic format.

What The Rise Of Serials Could Mean For Film And TV Schools Graduates

Today, serialized structure is more common than ever. The popularity of ‘binge-watching’ means viewers are hungrier than ever for stories that unfold over time, while streaming services like Netflix mean producers don’t have to worry about them missing episodes .

For aspiring writers and filmmakers in television schools, serialized narratives offer a lot of advantages. Unfolding the story more slowly will allow them to take viewers on a richer, more novelistic journey, building towards bigger climaxes, as seen in acclaimed shows such as The Wire and Breaking Bad. Writers will also have more room to add subtle story beats and character details.

Is episodic format still relevant in modern television? While serialization can allow more freedom for filmmakers, it also brings its own problems. Shows, such as Lost and How I Met Your Mother, have suffered from serialized arcs that dragged on too long, with payoffs that ultimately left fans disappointed.

It’s also worth noting that some of the most successful shows in recent times incorporated both serialized and episodic elements. Individual episodes of dramas like The Sopranos and Mad Men were strong enough to stand alone as self-contained stories, while still advancing series with long plot arcs. Combining both gave the creators even more freedom to produce compelling work.

What exactly is ‘film noir’? The term was coined by critics in the 1940s to describe a wave of new films that a adopted a dark, fatalistic attitude, which it is said mirrored the powerlessness many people felt in the face of the global conflict of the period. The movies were usually hard-boiled tales of urban crime and corruption, with excessive violence, deceitful characters and not a happy ending in sight.

Yet film noir grew into much more than just that. Over the years, innovative filmmakers have adapted its visual elements, character tropes and story structures into different genres and film styles. For film production students, using noir elements in their own films can help add excitement, depth and uniqueness.

A Darker Perspective: Noir Visual Cues You’ll Learn at Film Production College

To add dramatic tension and create an uneasy feel to their movies, noir filmmakers broke many of the classic Hollywood rules about cinematography. Shots with asymmetrical or imbalanced composition, or scenes where the viewer’s vision of the action is obscured were commonplace, while they would also use extreme close-ups of protagonists’ faces to heighten the intensity of the action.

Of course, as students enrolled in film courses can probably guess, the most important element of the noir visual style was darkness. Much of the action would take place at night, and even during indoors and daytime scenes the shots tended to be darker, using high contrast lighting without fill lights to create shadowy scenes. The visual style perfectly reflected the darkness of the characters and story.

Noir films typically contained many dark, shadowy scenes.

No Happy Endings: How Students in Film Courses Can Use Noir Storytelling Elements

The key element of noir storytelling is fatalism. As critic Roger Ebert once said, a good film noir movie “at no time misleads you into thinking there is going to be a happy ending.” To facilitate this, many noir filmmakers took to telling stories in flashback and using voiceovers from characters to narrate their story, both popular narrative devices in other genres today.

Film production college students could also learn a lot by studying the story structure of early noir movies. Many of these films use a plotting technique called a “spiderweb of deceit,” in which a character makes a mistake that creates a domino effect, leading to much greater problems.

Film Courses Teach Students to Add Shades Of Grey to Create Real ‘Noir’ Characters

Film noir is responsible for the famous ‘femme fatale’ archetype, in which the main protagonist is drawn into conflicts by a ruthless woman. The protagonists themselves are also quite flawed, and are usually presented as quite cynical and embittered, often with questionable pasts.

These classic tropes can be incorporated into a script in many different ways, and over the years, filmmakers have added their own unique twists to the character types. Above all else, presenting characters that are somewhat morally ambiguous and play with audience perceptions of good and evil is really the mark of true noir style.